While Wells Fargo's earnings report was disappointing, missing on revenue and reporting another decline in overall loan growth, it contained another flashing red light: auto loan originations crashed 47% Y/Y to only $4.3 billion, the lowest print since the bank started disclosing this item back in 2013.

"...now Cohn’s in charge of the economy and talking about eliminating financial reform and basically putting the country back to where it was in 2005, as if 2008 didn’t happen. I’ve started the countdown clock to the next financial crash, which will make the last one look mild."

"The real Europe is not the one Juncker paints a portrait of. The real Europe is Greece. That’s where you can see the economic reality as well as the political one. Greece has no sovereignty left to speak of, despite the fact that it is guaranteed it in EU law. Europe’s political reality is about raw power. About the rich waterboarding the poor, to the point that they are turned from sovereign citizens of their countries into lost souls in debt prisons."

Nearly 10 years to the day since Lehman Brothers failed, the US filed a civil lawsuit in federal court in Brooklyn against Paul Mangione, former Deutsche Bank head of subprime trading, whom it accused of defrauding investors in mortgage-backed securities sold before the financial crisis.

Once again The Fed's Beige Book is brought to you by the world "modest" (used 140 times) and "moderate" (80 times) with regard to growth but did have a couple of new things to focus on with regard tight labor markets and auto production/sales anxiety.

For the first time in 9 months China's $9 trillion Shadow Banking Industry - defined as the sum of Trust Loans, Entrusted Loans and Undiscounted Bank Loans - contracted, which begs the question: will the biggest deleveraging ever attempted in Chinese history be smooth and contained, or lead to another financial crisis?

Several weeks ago, Janet Yellen boldly declared "I don't believe we will see another crisis in our lifetime." For the rest of us who live in reality there is little doubt that the latest Fed-fueled credit bubble will eventually burst in epic fashion and once again lay waste to the personal balance sheets of millions of Americans. The question isn't so much 'if', but rather 'how' and 'when.'

"I’d love to be wrong. Nothing would make me happier than having to eat all these words. But without significant changes, and soon, the economy will drift sideways and down... Any outside shock – and several may be in the offing – could push us into recession."

While Wells Fargo's overall earnings report was passable despite another decline in overall loan growth, it contained another flashing red light: in an unexpected twist, Wells reported that auto loan originations crashed 45% Y/Y to only $4.5 billion, the lowest print since the bank started disclosing this item back in 2013.

Overnight China released its latest monthly credit data which showed that even as China is trying to choke off its shadow banking sector, something we showed last month when we discussed the biggest crash in net bond issuance on record, credit to the broader economy continues to flow although some analysts are growing nervous that even this "crazy" number may not be enough.

"...booming economic growth is exactly what is priced into the still soaring stock market averages. But the Carmageddon story is evidence of the rot which lies beneath today’s mutant economy and lunatic financial bubbles..."